Existing arrangements for data conferencing between a plurality of data stations, such as computers or terminals, use complex centralized conference circuits to interconnect the data stations. Such circuits become especially complex when adapted to interconnect stations of different types and operating at different transmission rates. It is a problem in the art that such data conference arrangements are complex, expensive, functionally dependent upon the inter-station communication medium and hence typically incompatible with any but one type of medium, and unable to make use of the often-large base of application programs available on the interconnected stations.